


Needlessly Defiant

by mayoho



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Britta and Jeff are best when they get up to hijinks, Drunk introspection and questionable ideas, Friendship, Gen, Teen rating for language, Vandalism, post-season 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 15:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5790532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayoho/pseuds/mayoho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Britta and Jeff get drunk and don't have sex, Jeff has a moment of clarity, and Jeff and Britta having fun together is always a bit dangerous.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Needlessly Defiant

They're wasted and somehow it's clear that they're not going to have sex. Maybe it was the moment when Britta leaned across the couch and kissed him. She had pulled away, the tiny crease of a frown between her eyebrows, and instead of kissing it away Jeff had dropped his head on her shoulder and giggles helplessly into the crook of her neck. He feels strange; an anxious bubble filling the empty space in his chest, like they are too close to honesty for real comfort.

They're sitting with their heads lolling on their necks, propped up by the back of Jeff's couch and Britta rolls her head over to look at him, her face vacant and mannequin like, which either means she's completely zoned out or about to dispense some strange existential wisdom. "So melancholy, Jeff. You don't hate it, though. Teaching. At Greendale, do you?"

Jeff looks at her. 

"Well, you don't, do you? You’re even good at it when you try. I hear things, don't try to deny it." Her words slur together a bit, but it somehow doesn’t undercut the levity she’s clearly trying to impart. 

Jeff tips his chin up to look at the ceiling and sighs. He starts to think of something flippant to say, but he's stopped dead by the feeling in his chest and how it's not actually all that bad. 

"I'm not who I thought I was. I thought I was exactly the person I was supposed to be, the person you thought I was when you said I was shallow and I was proud of it, and it turns out I'm not. I hate that, that I don’t know who I’m supposed to be instead."

"And returned having changed." Britta says the phrase with weight, like it means something, isn't an insane non sequitur. 

"What?" Jeff picks his head up to look at Britta, to make sure it seems like a real question. Britta gets tetchy and shuts down when she thinks people are dismissing her. As quick as he is to give Britta shit, he feels so awful when he upsets her by accident.

Britta sits up with considerable effort. "Abed was explaining Campbell to me before he left. Stories end when the hero returns having changed. But I said that's stupid. Isn't what happens next, the dealing with having changed part, more meaningful or whatever. And Abed said I had a point."

Her smile lights up her face. Jeff gets it, how special it feels to connect with Abed, how easy it is when Jeff lets his guard down, how hard it is for him to get to the point where he can. 

Jeff thinks of the kid he could have been if he had been less jaded, less scared of how much the world could hurt, just as angry--someone a lot more like Britta.

"Let's do something stupid. Like the kind of thing you would do to prove you exist."

Britta looks like she's considering being offended for a minute before smiling wide and excited, "We're gonna stick it to the man?"

"Stick it to the man," Jeff repeats with a certain amount of derision, but it's mostly teasing and Britta knows it. She looks him up and down, a manic light in her eyes.

"Go put on something... less expensive. Then we'll go make a statement."

Jeff puts on a worn pair of jeans (it takes him a while to find some, he usually donates his old clothes as soon as they get ratty) and a pair of converse he had impulse bought some indeterminate length of time ago and never really worn. He's still pretty drunk so Britta wanders into his bedroom and teases him as he fumbles with his shoe laces. She smiles a little wistfully when he straightens up. "You look like someone I would be be friends with."

Britta's changed too, and maybe she feels the same way--wrong and unsettled in her skin--Jeff does, at least sometimes. He looks at himself in the full length mirror on the back of the door and fusses with his hair. It’s easier than thinking. 

“Well?” he says eventually. His hair is spiky enough to be a tiny bit punk rock now and Britta is staring at him, a wonky smile on her face. She’s clearly making fun of him but not in a mean way. 

“Yeah,” she replies and tugs him out of his apartment by the wrist. He almost doesn’t lock the door behind him. 

 

It takes them twenty minutes to walk to a disreputable looking convenience store (there had been a fair bit of giggling and stumbling) where Britta speaks to the bored looking kid manning the cash register in some terrible imitation of street talk. It’s the middle of the night; Jeff feels bad for him. They walk away with three cans of spray paint in jarring fluorescent colors, a flashlight, and a bag of popcorn--paid for in cash. 

Jeff eats the popcorn even though it’s covered in greasy fake butter that clings unpleasantly to the tips of his fingers. It doesn’t feel like giving up, but it feels like something. Maybe he’s just still drunk and it’s fucking with his head, but he’s pretty sure this is the best popcorn he’s ever eaten even though it definitely also tastes mostly like salt and cardboard and possibly something a little bit burnt. He’s following Britta who seems steady on her feet now--Jeff thinks it’s more a factor of determination than sobering up. He giggles and it comes out much louder than he intended. Britta looks at him, face shadowed in the overhead glow of the streetlights. He smiles at her, helpless but aiming for contrite. She puts her fingers to her lips and shushes him, nearly as loud as his giggling. He can’t stop laughing and has to cling to her shoulders while he collects himself. At least the popcorn grease is now conveniently on Britta’s denim jacket instead of his fingers. 

They haven’t walked too far; Jeff can tell because his stupid hipster sneakers definitely don’t fit as well as the boots he usually wears or the sneakers he only ever wears at the gym but his feet don’t hurt yet. He could be wrong though, he’s definitely lost track of time. They’re in the grass on the side of the highway out of Greendale near a billboard advertising chicken from some factory farm. Jeff approves of the choice; he does actually usually listen when Britta talks, and the stuff she says about factory farming always makes him nauseous and angry but he would never tell her that. 

“Last chance.” Britta says as she investigates the scaffolding that supports the massive sign. Jeff’s almost angry that she’s giving him an out, like she doesn’t trust him to commit. He smiles, the slightly vicious one he used to use before he lawyered the shit out of some unsuspecting prosecutor, but the effect is sort of ruined when he has to squint as Britta shines the flashlight beam in his face.

“Frankie will bail us out if you fuck up and get us caught,” he says it flippantly, but thinking about consequences causes a surge of adrenaline to rush through his body. He’s 41. This is so fucking stupid. 

“So we just have to climb the scaffold thing?” Jeff asks before he can freak himself out. It doesn’t look too difficult, he passed Ladders. 

“Yup,” says Britta, popping the p and fidgeting with the plastic bag from the convenience store. Jeff takes one of the cans of spray paint and sticks it in his pocket. Britta carefully selects the really hideous orange can and somehow manages to wedge it into the waistband of her jeans. 

Jeff starts to climb. It’s going to be higher than he thought it would be, but he doesn’t think he’ll get himself killed if he falls. It would be sort of funny if he did though. 

“Oh,” Britta yells up to him, “If you see any headlights, just stay really still. They probably won’t notice.”

“Real helpful Britta,” he calls back.

There’s a little ledge along the bottom of the sign. Jeff guesses it’s there so they can put up new signs--he’s never really thought about how this stuff works. As he walks out on it, he’s struck by the idea that he probably should be wearing some sort of safety device, but it’s too late for that now. Britta is standing next to him, and he’s really more worried that she’s going to fall than he is about himself. Not for any good reason--she seems steady and has way more experience than he does doing this kind of stuff. It would be easier to deal with being hurt himself than the other way around. 

Britta pulls out her can of spray paint and shakes it. Whatever is in the can along with the paint and propellent makes a satisfying clicking noise. 

“Make sure you get the letters big enough and make them blocky.” She sounds very serious.

They make short work of it and soon the word ‘MURDERERS’ is spelled out in slightly misshapen alternating green and orange letters with the ‘s’ just barely squeezed in at the end. The letters are bold enough to be clearly visible at a distance--they can tell as they observe their handy work back on the ground. Mission accomplished. 

A car drives past and they both startle.

“Run!” Britta hisses and they both run flat out into the weird growth of bushes by the exit ramp. 

It seems to take hardly any time at all to get back to Jeff’s apartment. They’re both gasping for breath, hanging on to each other just inside Jeff’s door. His face hurts from smiling. 

Britta cups his face in her palms. There’s nothing sexual about the gesture, which is weird and sort of wrong, but also oddly comforting. 

“You’re ok,” she says, like she wasn’t sure before but is now.

“Yeah,” he says, fighting every instinct to pull away.

They fall asleep tangled together on Jeff’s couch and Frankie gives Britta a stern look the next day when they are both slightly hungover and still giddy. Britta gives him a betrayed look, but Jeff just shrugs and pulls out his phone. He has a reputation to uphold, but maybe he doesn’t need to try so hard.

**Author's Note:**

> Jeff characterization experiement. I was re-reading some of the stuff I wrote while season 6 was airing, and I think I was writing him as a bit too sad, but I don't want to over correct and loose the feeling of melancholy. Season 6 is a pretty dark time for Jeff, but I think there are things about Jeff introduced in the first three seasons that are sort of immutably part of him that mean he's, on some fundamental level, ok with himself even when he's lost and confused about what the hell he's allowed his life to become. Or maybe I've just listened to way too much Harmontown and am poking too much at Jeff's similarities to Jeff Davis.
> 
> Constructive Criticism, or really any sort of comment, welcome.


End file.
